by V. K. Ludwig
“I swear it was this chair,” I gently pushed against the spindle back, then held both my palms up. “I’m here to protect you, and I would never hurt you, or let anybody else hurt you.”
“Do you really want me to believe it’s a coincidence that something grabbed my butt a minute after you talk about me falling in love with you? I would never fall in love with someone like you.”
Someone like me? My blood boiled. Did she mean hypothetically? I knew people from the Districts loved nothing and no-one. The damned water made sure of that. But still, for some reason her words hurt me somewhere between my head and my chest, leaving behind a burning lump at the back of my throat.
She stared at the chair for a long while, then frowned and looked around the room. It wasn’t hard to tell she wanted to be anywhere but here at that moment.
“Maybe it was the chair,” she mumbled. “I got scared and… I just want to go to bed now. Where is my room?”
I dropped one of my arms down by my side. With the other, I pointed towards the ladder which led to the loft upstairs.
“B-but there is no door. There isn’t even a wall!”
She took a step back and examined everything through the horizontal birch branches which created a gray baluster. Dried patches of moss speckled the bark a soft yellow here and there.
Behind it, the firmest mattress and softest pillows I could find. Completely dressed in triple-bleached cotton. My arms still itched.
“You are more than welcome to take my bed down here. It’s toasty at night when the stove is all fired up. But I figured up there, you will last least have some privacy. I get it’s not ideal, but your safety is the most important thing to us.”
“Privacy? You’re kidding, right?” She furrowed her brows. “How can your chieftain expect me to sleep in the same room with someone like…” She bit her lips.
“Someone like what?” I asked.
A deep sigh spilled from her mouth. “Nothing.”
Why didn’t she just say it? Man, if she really thought we were such monsters, why did she even bother coming here? Do I really look that desperate?
“Someone like me?” I asked. “You know nothing about me. Not every man outside of your walls is a bad as the council wants you to believe, Ayanna. I’m not one of those who —”
“Oh.” She puffed. “Not one of those who grabs a woman’s butt without her permission?”
“I told you I didn’t do it!” I shouted. “I am twenty-eight fucking years old and have never touched a woman in my life.”
The color drained from her face. For a moment, the anger in her eyes seemed replaced by pity. I guess my unplanned confession didn’t fit in with her idea of the raping savage beyond the concrete wall.
That’s right. I knew just as much about women as she knew about men or the things that should go on between them. She acted like I was some scum from the mountains. As if I was like… like… Roger.
No, I could never do to a woman what he had done to my mother. Argh! I pushed the thought to the side. Not here. Not now. I forced down a sick feeling and bore my eyes into her. What now?
Arms crossed in front of her chest, her lips quivered underneath her fury once more. “I’d rather sleep outside and freeze to death than share this room with you.”
I had no control over how hard my jaw clenched and feared I would break off a tooth or two. So, that’s how terrible I am? She can’t even sleep under the same roof as me?
“Well, guess what little princess,” I growled. “If it were for me, I’d throw you onto the porch in your birthday suit to speed up the process.”
Her eyes widened, visibly shocked by my words. I didn’t care. Except… I couldn’t let her freeze of course, or I would be a dead man too.
“I am not a princess.” She raised a brow in annoyance.
“Sure you are,” I said and grabbed my pillow. “You grew up with a hot steaming shower every morning. Breakfast served by one of your trash cans with human faces. Oh, and your daily thirty minutes of meditation and yoda.”
“Yoga…”
I shrugged my shoulders and pulled on my blanket. “Whatever.”
“You have no clue about how I grew up.” Her eyes bulged with disgust, and something else I couldn’t read. Did she feel ashamed because I called her out as the special little snowflake she was?
With my pillow under one arm, I dragged my blanket behind me over the maple varnished floorboards.
Ayanna’s gaze followed my every stomp towards the cabin door. “What are you doing?”
“Did you really expect I would let you sleep outside?” I pulled the iron handle on the oaken door. The tip of my nose went into a state of instant-freeze. “You did, didn’t you? Perhaps I don’t know everything about how you grew up. But one thing I understand quite well here: you think I am some sort of savage who will sneak up on you in the middle of the night. But guess what, princess, nothing on you would ever tempt me that much.”
That was a lie. Damn. Why couldn’t she just be old and ugly? Everything about her was tempting. Her ebony hair wrapped in the scent of fresh mint. Those a-little-less-than a handful breasts she hid underneath her wide dress. Even her tiny feet. But hey, she needed to hear this. My chest lightened, and I took a deep breath.
I sure told her. I wanted to see her burst from anger. And once she did, I would slam that door right in her face.
I fully expected red cheeks and a heaving chest, but nobody had prepared me for what I saw instead. Heat burned down my spine as soon as I turned around. Are those…?
Her stare had turned into something as icy as Wolf Lake in January. That her tears hadn’t turned into crystals yet was a miracle. Did she cry because of what I said?
A primal desire to take her into my arms yelled from my brain stem. But before my lips had the chance to part into an apology… Bam! She threw the whopper of a door into the lock with a roaring slam.
Chapter 10
Stiff neck
Ayanna
I am such a freaking nutcase. I didn’t sleep all night. And why? Because I waited for River to creep up the stairs and throw himself at me. Did it happen? No. He didn’t as much as breathe into the direction of the doorknob. I saw his cocked head leaning on a chair beneath the window from the time I went to bed until I got up. Only once did he get up… to wee over the rail of his porch.
“Ouch!” The needle of the impregnation kit poked into my thumb. This hurt a lot more than I expected, and I dreaded having to do it repeatedly. I pushed the pocket-sized computer under my pillow to muffle the sounds.
“Blood work completed,” the kit said, “unable to calculate ovulation at this point.”
Why is this crappy thing not working?
“You ok up there?” River asked.
I startled. When did he come in here?
“Yeah, yeah. Mmh… just changing the settings on my holo-band.”
I placed my thumb on the computer once more and pressed my mouth onto the pillow to muffle my yelp. “Ouch!”
“You sure you’re ok? I thought I heard something.”
His curls bounced up and down as he walked underneath the loft.
“I told you I’m fine.”
“Hm,” he mumbled. “Maybe it was Monk.”
Who is Monk? Wasn't it only me and him? This shoebox can't fit another person!
“Coffee?” he asked.
The door opened and my nipples poked through my nightgown.
“Please,” I yelled, “with three ice cubes.”
I hid the impregnation kit under the mattress. How stupid of me not to check if this ancient thing still worked before I came here.
What if it needed a new battery? Did they even have batteries here?
I didn’t want to get up. If I did, I would have to apologize. Ugh! I flung my robe around me and climbed down. Soft wooden dowels caressed my feet, and the smell of freshly brewed coffee tickled the tip of my nose.
The books still lay scattered across the room. I am so
stupid. River didn’t strike me as someone who would do what I accused him of. After all, Rowan trusted him with his life.
I spent a few extra minutes in the bathroom and scrolled through the potential sperm donors I had saved on my holo-band. Adair, Einar and a guy named Timothy. All three free of cancer. No learning difficulties. Maybe not as smart as most donors from the Districts, but hey, what did River say last night? Beggars can’t be choosers.
“Adair,” I whispered, just to get a taste of his name on my tongue. Tall, handsome, and a rather high IQ for a clansman. I have to meet him!
I took the bottle of enhanced water I had grabbed last night and poured it down the toilet. His bathroom was simple; a metal bowl stood on a slab of wood. Dark in the middle but with a lighter line around it. The drain seemed to lead to the outside of the cabin.
A mirror hung above the sink, its frame ornamented with motifs of leaves and branches. I reached out for the face of a child who stared at me from underneath the foliage at the top center. The child’s rough surface sanded over the tips of my fingers and sucked the heat right out of my hand. Why does this child have wings on the back?
Dark blotches speckled some parts of the mirror. I had seen nothing like it. Where did he get all this ancient stuff from?
River stood on the porch by the open door with a mug in each hand. Did he sleep like that? Dressed in nothing but loose dark gray pants, I hated myself even more for letting him sleep outside last night. How did he even survive that?
I gazed over his upper body. We had athletic men in the Districts, but nothing like River. His body screamed male strength and something primal I had no name for.
“I don’t have ice cubes.” He passed me my mug and pointed at the chair he had spent the night in. “But I brought you a quilt. As far as I know, you aren’t used to the cold.”
He picked up his arm and massaged the back of his neck. Aww, poor guy. I’m sure it feels like a stiff board.
“Um.” I stepped on the porch and the chill of the morning hugged me like a blanket made of the finest mist. “About that. I’m sorry for last night.”
The hot mug burned between my hands, but my fingers embraced it and wanted to soak in all in. Is he going to say something? A simple It’s ok would do. Of course, an It was my fault would have been even better. He nodded with his face in a frown. I took it gladly.
I sat on the chair with the quilt hanging on its armrest. Embroidered with blue and red stars, it appeared so different from the repetition of whites, grays, and purples from the Districts. It had small holes in some places, and in others, the fabric had worn so thin, you could make out the crinkles of the batting behind it.
“Why does this chair rock back and forth?” I asked.
“Why not? It’s comfy and relaxing,” he said, “sit back and give it a try.”
I leaned against the backrest. He walked up to me, grabbed the quilt and draped it over me. He placed it over my chest and pulled it until it reached my chin. Trying hard not to touch me, he pushed it underneath my armpits. All cozied up, I took in the scents of soap and damp air which clung to the fabric.
“Do you feel it?” he asked.
I gazed at him from the corner of my eyes. “Feel what?”
“How time seems to slow down when you sit here and allow yourself to be.”
“Be what?”
“Be what you are.” He leaned his backside against the porch rail and ran his fingers through his hair. Lazy curls separated only to twirl back into their original state right after. “Not what others judge you to be.”
He threw his head back in a yawn, and I allowed my eyes to wander over this man. Goosebumps pebbled his skin and made the small scar on his chest almost disappear. Why did so many women choose their sperm samples? River had his charms. Sure. But enough to make such a fuss?
“You don’t like being judged?” I asked.
He rubbed his blemished, weather-beaten hand across his chest. “I don’t really give a shit. Nobody’s judgment can be worse than my own, anyway.”
Sadness clung to his voice like a terrible nightmare that wouldn’t let you wake up. Another wound?
“You use those words a lot,” I said.
He flung his head forward again and arched a brow at me.
“Your foul language.”
A smirk drew on his face. “Funny, because I find you’re not using those words often enough.”
“Why would I?” I took a sip of my coffee. “Profanity serves no purpose. It has no positive effect on someone's effectiveness.”
A chill ran along the porch, and I pulled the quilt over my shoulder. What I did here wasn’t so useful either. I had to meet Adair.
“You know what?” River asked. “Not everything needs to serve a purpose. Not everything needs to contribute to something. Sometimes we do stuff because it feels fucking great.”
After we finished our coffees and got dressed, River walked me over to the school building. Its shape reminded me of a mushroom, and so did the structure of the wall. I held my arm out and ran the tips of my fingers over the exterior wall. Although my fingers got stuck on the rough surface and protruding fibers which poked out here and there, it radiated a deep warmth.
“What is this?” I asked River.
He slapped his palm against the wall and dust puffed from the building’s cider-colored pores. “It’s called a cob home. We mixed clay, sand, water, and straw until it blended into a firm dough. We used that mixture to form the walls with it.”
“But it looks like it will turn into a pile of mud as soon as it rains.” I pressed my hand firmly against it.
“Actually, it holds up great. We need to apply more dough every couple of years. But as you can see, it’s round. Nothing is stronger than a circular structure.” He placed his hand beside mine on the wall, and specks of clay crumbled from it. “It stores heat well, is mold-resistant and won't burn down. Definitely, a plus because unlike the Districts, we don’t have firefighters.” He laughed.
“How do you know all this?”
His eyes sparkled. “This might surprise you, but I am the engineer here. I only pull guard duty because Rowan assigned me to it.”
I opened the door and stepped inside the building. Wow! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Did straight walls ever exist?
In here, they waved themselves through the room, embellished with strawberry red and ocean blue glass inserts. The inner wall, however, sparkled in a deep green, like the forest which surrounded this school.
I touched one of the glass shards.
“We recycled glass bottles to let some natural light in,” River said.
“Are all the walls rounded?”
“Winter can be brutal here.” He pointed at a framed picture of children standing up to their bellybuttons in a powdery white ocean. “I had to calculate for heavy snow loads. Their safety is a top priority. Children are the future, right?”
“So, you studied to be an architect of some sort?”
He gave me a hesitant smile. “And architect is someone who went to school for this.” He pointed at a wall filled with books, each of the wooden shelves sagging from exhaustion underneath the load. “We scavenged thousands about many subjects. The best books are in old stores they called Barnes&Noble, but high schools have some neat ones too.”
His words electrified me. “You’ve been to schools? Real schools where children used to go to?”
He pushed his chest out and nodded.
“You seem like a nice guy, River.” I said. “I bet your samples are quite popular in the Districts.”
His chest deflated as quickly as the smirk disappeared from his face. Did I say something wrong? Don’t they give compliments here?
“Not as popular as Adair’s,” he mumbled.
River turned away before I managed to look for an answer in his eyes, heavy-lashed and dark like midnight.
I let my hand glide over the crooked wooden shelves which the kids had decorated with pinecone families. Bunches of
dried rosemary filled the room with a medicinal smell. Not the Neosporin and ammonia type. No. More like the type where an old woman danced around you with smudging herbs.
Small carved figurines collected in the shapes of elephants, gorillas and what appeared to be an ugly horse or a pretty donkey.
The earthy colors in this room stood in clear contrast to the never-ending use of concrete and glass from the Districts. It almost suffocated me with its coziness.
Every building and every room seemed to extend nature. At the Districts, nature only existed in neatly arranged rows and perfect color-coordination.
Realization settled down on me and spun my stomach around. In less than twenty-four hours I was supposed to teach young children in this room. All I had prepared was my plan to become a mother. A curriculum to do the actual job they sent me here for? Forget about it! It let a shudder run down my neck all the way to my tailbone.
“I can’t believe I am getting to meet you in person.” The woman waddled towards me, her smile as wide and open as her arms. She pushed her baby bump to the side and pulled me into a heartfelt hug. “I saw you drive by the village yesterday, but River was so quick to get you out of sight, I couldn’t even say hi.”
She cupped my face and pressed a kiss onto my forehead.
“Ayanna, this is Bry,” River said. “She will help you with the children until you are settled into some sort of routine. But only until the baby comes, so you better settle in fast.”
I looked down at her protruding belly, beautifully draped underneath her yellow dress. She heaved and puffed.
Pulling her into another hug, my muscles relaxed, and a fuzzy feeling settled on my neck and down my back. “I am so happy to see another woman. I already thought everyone lied to me and I’m the only one here.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she winked.
I politely smiled. No, I wouldn’t like that at all.
“You’re late.” River chuckled.
“Shut up River.” Without warning, she grabbed my wrist and placed my hand onto her belly. “He’s kicking. Just wait a second. Wait.”